Saturday, 15 October 2016

Is it true that if I work hard I can be successful?

Because humans are naïve by nature.

Growing up you might have heard “If you
work hard you can achieve whatever you want”. Of course this might be true in some
aspects you might be able to work hard enough and go to University, you might
be able to work hard and achieve your fitness goal and you might be able to
work hard and achieve your dream career. However, I am talking about working
hard in another way. Working hard for that green- money.

The image of working class children
becoming ‘successful’ by becoming millionaires is often the dream. But the fact
is this is a small minority. There is not a huge amounts of Lord Alan Sugars
walking around. Instead the top 1% often inherit their wealth, are born into
wealth, inherit a business or they are lucky. The truth is to become a
millionaire you either have to be lucky or in the top 1% from birth.

You might believe that what I am talking is
not the truth and just some ‘lefty’ rubbish. But no this is coming from a
contributor and a voter of the conservative party, who ironically does
sociology. (Trust me every day that I do sociology I jump slightly more to the
left).

From day one we are brain-washed into
thinking that the system is meritocratic- fair and that if you work hard you
will be at the top. However, for this to work those at the top would fall down
and those at the bottom would reach the top (social mobility). As you can already tell this is not the case.

From day one middle class children have an
advantage over the working class children. Whether this be because they buy
education through the private system or they can afford to buy a tutor over the
weekends. Working class children rarely get this benefit and therefore have to
work twice as hard to achieve what middle class children can achieve. So no the
education system and society as a whole is not meritocratic. It is rather
unfair.